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ERA OF THE FORMATION 



OF THE I 

4 

HISTORIC LEAGUE OF THE IROQUOIS 



J. N. B. HEWITT 



(Reprinted from The American Anthropologist, January, 1894) 



WASHINGTON, D..C. 
JUDD & DETWEILER, printers 

1894 







ERA OP THE FORMATION OF THE HISTORIC LEAGUE 
OF THE IROQUOIS. 

BY J. Ni^B. HEWITT. 

In his " Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human 
Famih'-," page 151, INIr. Lewis H. Morgan, speaking of the league 
of the Iroquois, says : "As near as can now be ascertained the 
league had l)een estaldished about one hundred and fifty years 
when Champlain. in 1609, first encountered the Mohawks within 
tlieir own territories on the west shore of Lake (ieorge. This 
would place the e]ioch of its formation about A. D. 145'.). . . . 
According to their traditions, which are confirmed to some ex- 
tent by other evidence, they had resided in this area [the jtresent 
limits of the state of New York] for a long period of time l)efore 
the league was formed, and had at times made war upon each 
other." 

This deduction is based mainly on traditions obtained from 
the Senekas and the Tuskaroras. In 1875 Mr. Horatio Hale* 
was informed by the Onondaga chiefs resident in New York 
state that " it was their belief that the confederacy was formed 
about six generations before the white people came to these 
parts ; " they had met to explain to Mr. Hale their wampum 
strings and belts. Reckoning twenty-five years to a "' genera- 
tion " and a.ssuming the " white people " to have l)een Hudson's 
men, in 1609, Mr. Hale reaches the identical date olitained by 
Mr. Morgan. Considering, however, how untrustworthy tradi- 
tion is in matters of chronology, such exact accordance in results 
unsupported by historic records does not materially strengthen 
the prol)al)ility that the date reached thereby is the correct one. 

It is ver}^ douljtful that " twenty-five " years were ever consid- 
ered as a "generation '" by the Iroquois in computing time, l)ut 
it is certain that they did reckon by the " length of a man's life," 
which may be assumed to be about 60 or 70 j^ears ; and it is not 
unlikely that the Onondaga chiefs in 1875 put forth a mere con- 
jecture, not wishing to be thought ignorant of their past history ; 



Iroquois Book of Rites, i)aji:e 178. 



62 THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST. [Vol. VII. 

SO that 360 or 420 years more nearly meet the requirements of 
the Onondagan statement than does Mr. Hale's 150, and of 
course an epoch for the formation of the league antedating 1609 
by 360 to 420 years is not to be considered. It was evidently a 
blind guess of the genial chiefs. 

David Cusick, the so-called historian of the Iroquois, who was 
undoubtedly conversant with the traditions of the Iroquois as 
well as with the so-called wampum records, says, in his " Sketches 
of the Ancient History of the Six Nations," that the confederacy 
was formed '" perhaps one thousand years before Columbus dis- 
covered America;" but of course his reasons for this belief, as 
Mr. Hale a])tly says, "do not l)car examination." 

It may be worthy of remark that the linguistic evidence found 
in C'usick's work shows conclusively that })ractically all the his- 
torical and traditional information })ut forth by him had come 
from the moutlis of tlie annalists of the Five Nations or Irocjuois 
proper, and not irom Tuskarora sources. This is what would 
be expected, for the reason that the Tusl^xroras, being an extra- 
limital peo})le with regard to the Iroquois proper, could have 
had only a very general idea of the genesis and history of the 
league and its constitution and of the post-ethnic, mythologic, 
and legendary lore of the northern branches of the Iroquoian 
linquistic family. 

Events which are known to have occurred between 1650 and 
1656 appeared to Cusick and his informants to have been syn- 
chronous with the discovery of America, for he tells us that the 
Evles were conquered " about this time." Cusick wrote in 1825 
and the defeat of the Eries occurred in 1656, or 169 years before ; 
hence, Cusick by making the latter date synchronous with the 
discovery of America in 1492 places it 164 3^ears too earl3^ Here 
tradition with its wanqnim records is more than 160 years 
astray regarding an event so recent, comparatively speaking, as 
the overthrow of the Eries. In other words, the defeat of the 
Eries occurred 169 years l:)efore the time Cusick wrote, and yet 
he and his co-annalists err by 160 years regarding the date of 
that event. What then must be the confusion in tradition con- 
cerning a transaction which occurred i)erhaps 75 years earlier 
than the defeat and dispersion of the Eries? 

It is thus seen that the dates of the formation of the league 
deduced l>y Morgan and Hale from oral tradition alone are un- 






Jan. 1894.] FORMATION OF TIIK IKOQUOIS LEAGUE. 63 

trustworthy. Tradition alone cannot fix it with any degree of 
prol)al)ility. The so-called wampum records are mnemonic hut 
not chronologic, and so are not to he trusted to estahlisli dates. 

In considering traditional statements a distinction must he 
made hetween the tradition relating to fact or doctrine and the 
tradition relating to rites and ceremonies; tlie tradition con- 
cerning fact or doctrine, heing handed down hy word of mouth, 
is oral, and the tradition of rite and ceremony, dejiending largely 
U})on ohservation for its i)reservation, is ocular. Tlie relation of 
the most simple fact, as it passes from mouth to mouth, is dis- 
torted, and after a time becomes so changed that it has scarcely 
any Gemhlance to its first form. But it is different with cere- 
monial observances. These are seized and retained by the sight, 
the most faithful and accurate of our senses. They are imitated 
until imitation l)ecomes habitual ; and habits when once formed 
are changed or eradicated with difficulty. Nothing is more cer- 
tain than that many customs prevail among nations and com- 
munities for wliich they are wholly unable to account, their 
})revalence being due solely to traditional observance which does 
not concern itself with matters of chronology. Tliis, then, is tlie 
difference l)etween oral and ocular tradition. The fact or doc- 
trine may l)e ol)scured or lost in the current of time, while the 
cereaiony or outward observance of it is transmitted nearly or 
cpiite unimpaired. 

The first mention of the Five Nations or Iroipiois pn)])er is 
probal)ly that made l)y Jacques Cartier in 1535, when he men- 
tions in some manuscripts the " Trudamani " or " Toudamani." 
and '■ Trudamans," who were evidently no other people than the 
well-known " Tsonnontowanens " of later writers, 'i'he latter 
was one of the names given the Iroquois l)y Huronian tribes in 
later times. Of the " Trudamani," Cartier asserts (in 1535) not 
only that they " do war continually among themselves," but 
also that " they showed us the skins of five men's heads si)read 
upon boards as we do use' parchment. Donnacona told us that 
they were skins of Toudamani, a people dwelling toward the 
south, who continually do war against them. ^Moreover, they 
told us that it was two years past that those Toudanians came to 
assault them ; yea, even into the said river." Again, at Hoch- 
elaga, he was informed that ''there l^e Agouionda, that is as 
much as to say, evil people, who go all armed even to their 



64 THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST. [Vol. YII. 

finger ends. . . . They gave us also to understand that those 
Agoiiionda do continually war one against another." The word 
"Agouionda " is evidently the Iroquois " onkhiyo"tha'," which 
signifi.eii i hey strike lis ; hence our assailants. It is probahle that 
one and the same jjeople was designated by the words " Touda- 
mani " and "Agouionda," and that this people was the Iroquois. 
He describes a state of desultory warfare between the people 
living on the St. I^awrence and the " Toudamani, a people dwell- 
ing toward the south." There is, however, no liint given of the 
existence of a league. 

No league or confederation of peo])les was perhaps ever ft)rmed 
without a sufficient motive in the nature of outside pressure. 
That the Hurons were in possession of the St. Lawrence watershed 
above and below the Saguenay river is evident from Cartier's 
narrative, for he met two hundred ])ersons speaking Huron- 
Iroquois fishing at Gaspey. It is i)robable that the Iroquois 
were constrained to form the league to withstand the assaults of 
the Hurons and their Algonkin allies, for it is more than likely 
that such raids of the Iroquois as that mentioned Ijy Cartier 
would provoke and incense the Hurons and their allies to seek 
means to avenge their wrongs : and we should find evidence of 
the existence of the league in a more aggressive policy of the 
Iroquois consequent upon their political union for self-preser- 
vation. 

In 1622 Champlain was informed at a peace convention com- 
posed of Hurons, Algonkins, and Iroquois that these people 
were tired and fatigued by the war vvdiich had then lasted for 
" more than fifty years." Lescarbot, believing that '' the change 
of language in (Canada" was due to "a destruction of people," 
says, on page 170 of his Nova Francia (London, 1609), " For it 
is some eight years since the Iroquois did assemble themselves 
to the number of 8,000 (eight thousand) men, and discomfited 
all their enemies, whom they surprised in their enclosures;" 
and again, on page 290 : " By such surprises the Irocpiois, being 
in number eight thousand men, have heretofore exterminated 
the Algoumequins, them of Hochelaga, and others l)ordering 
upon the great river." 

Thus it apj)ears 1)}^ the quotation from Champlain that in 
1()22 the war of extermination had then lasted for more than 
fifty years, going l)ack to 1572 and })erhaps loGO as the date of 
its commencement. 



.Tan. 1S<J4.] FUKMATION OF TIIK IR(>(HOIS JJCAGUE. (35 

The exagfreration as to the numbers of the Iroqiioian warriors 
recorded liy Lescarljot was evidently put forth hy the van- 
quished peo])les, who consoled their vanity by assigning the 
cause of their defeat to the overwhelming numbers of their 
enemies rather than to a lack of courage on their part. 

The foregoing citations, denoting a serious state of war, it 
seems to me, are indicative of a newly formed league, and make 
it probable that its formation was sul)sequent to the middle of 
the sixteenth century (1550). This inference is supported by 
tradition, and, small as is the value of tradition as a basis of 
scientific research, it is b}' no means to be despised as an^ 
adjunct. The Rev. C. P3'rlaeus, who was formerl}' (about 1744- 
1750) a missionary among the Mohawks, who lived long with 
the Iroquois, and who was well acquainted with their language, 
is quoted l)y Heckewelder, in his '"Account of the History, 
Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations," as follows : " The 
Rev. C. Pyrlaeus, in his manuscrii)t book, i)age 234, sa3^s : 'The 
alliance or confederacy of the Five Nations was estaljlished. as 
near as can l)e conjectured, one age (or the length of a man s life) 
before the wliite peojtle (the Dutch) came into the country. 
Thannawage was the name of the aged Indian, a Mohawk, who 
first i>roposed such an alliance.' " It is not an easy matter to 
assign a definite nund)er of years to the expression "one age" 
in the foregoing citation, but, taking all things into considera- 
tion, I think that GO years will be within ten years, one way or 
the other, of the historical value of the mooted expression, and 
we may assume, I think, 1609, in which year both French and 
Dutch Avere met by the Iroquois, as the prol)able date when the 
" white i)eople came into the country," and by this reckoning 
we ol)tain 1559 as the most probable date of the formation of 
the league, which is deducible from the precarious factors now 
at hand. 

Commenting on the identification with the Dutch of the 
'' white people " mentioned in the citation from Pyrlaeus, Mr. 
Hale (Book of Rites, page 179). says that this "is pro))ably 
wrong. The white people who first 'came into the country' 
of the Huron-Iro(juois nations were the French under Cartier. 
. . . The presence of this expedition, with its soldiers and 
sailors of strange com])lexion and arme<l with terrible 'wea])ons, 
must have Ijeen known to all the tribes dwelling along the river, 



66 THE AMERICAN AXTHKOPOLOGIST. [Vol. YIl. 

and would naturally make an epoch in their chronology." But 
it is douV>tful whether the Five Nations knew anything definite 
ahout the Cartier expedition which had visited the territories 
only of their mortal enemies, for such knowledge could have 
come to them only by the vague hearsay of captives, and it is 
not probable that such precarious information " would naturally 
make an epoch in their chronology." 

The inference from the presumptive evidence in our posses- 
'sion is that the " white people " mentioned by Pyrlaeus and 
either by him or by Heckewelder identified with the Dutch, 
were only a part of the " white people " who were first met dur- 
ing the year 1609. 

Again, on page ISO of the volume cited, Mr. Hale says : " If 
when the Dutch first came among the Iroquois the confederacy 
had existed for only about eighty years, there must have been 
many persons then living Avho had personall}^ known some of 
its founders." But we have no proof that there were not 
" many " such })ersons " then living," for the early Dutch were 
far more solicitous about profits of l)arter than for ethnologic 
data, and so it is not in the least strange that they have left us 
scarcely any trustworthy evidence regarding the institutions of 
the people with whom they traded. 

'' It is," he further says, " quite inconceivable that the cloud 
of mytliological legends which has gathered around the names 
of these founders . . . should have arisen in so short a 
term as that suggested by Pyrlaeus." But, in the first place, it 
is overlooked that the founders of the league were all men re- 
puted to be skilled in the arts of sorcery and the supernatural, 
and, secondly, that their language of statecraft dealt very largely 
in metaphor, allegory, and in striking symbolism, and, lastly, 
that common tradition, unhampered by written records, would, 
in attempting to eulogize the achievements of their heroes, in a 
short time transform such material into confused mythologic 
legends by confounding the acts and sayings of their heroes 
with those attrilnited to their gods. 

Mr. Hale believes it improbable that in the brief jjcriod 
which has elapsed since the date suggested by the tradition 
recorded by Pyrlaeus "a fourth part of the names of the fifty 
[original, forty-eight] chiefs " forming the first council would 
have become " unintelligible or at least doubtful in meaning." 



Jan. 1894.] FORMATION OF THE IROQL'OIS LEAGUE. ()7 

In tlio first place, there i.s no evidence that many, much less a 
" fourtli '■ part of the names mentioned have come to ])e unin- 
telligilde or doul)tl'ul in mcanini;-. and. in tlie second [ilace, it 
is very unlikely, tliongh upon this j)oint direct evidence is want- 
ing, that a single name was si)ecially coined at the time of the 
estahlishment of the league ; so that it is (piite prohahlethat all 
the names may have long antedated the constitution of the con- 
federacy, and they may have also inherited the [trestige and 
tales springing from tlie heroic or other acts of tlicir former 
jiossessors. 

Lastly, in the legend reciting the events contemporary with 
the constitution of the league and leading up to its formation, 
the different tril)es of the Iroquois are re])resented as dwelling 
in the same relative local ])ositions which tliey held one to 
another when they first Ijecame known to transatlantic })eo])le. 
It does not seem prol)al)le that they could have held these same 
relative positions had the league existed since the middle of the 
fifteenth century. Successive migrations necessitated l)y their 
environment would have changed much the relative situation 
of tribal ha])itats one to another. 

This examination of the arguments for and against the date 
of the constitution of the league suggested hy the tradition 
recorded hy Pyi'laeus makes it [)rol)ahle that this date was 
hetween lool) and 1570. 



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